Green design

Green is "now" and sustainability is "wow," but according to Duane Whitbeck, Associate Professor of Family and Consumer Sciences and chair of that department, the ideas have been around for a while.

"Sustainable design has seemingly taken the world by storm," says Whitbeck. "Information about it is everywhere. You would think that we have hit upon a new idea."

But according to him the basic principles of sustainability have always been important to designers and architects to some extent. In continuity with that old idea, students in FCS 740, better known as Creative Problem Solving, were given an assignment by Denise Bertoncino, Associate Professor of Family and Consumer Sciences.

"They were to design a life-sized model based on a particular topic," says Bertoncino. "The students chose underwater plant and animal life."

Bertoncino says they did research on their topic, sketches, and developed a list of adjectives to describe their findings. From these words, they selected shapes and colors and applied them to the design.

"They created a very abstract space based on these," she says. "What made the project very challenging was the requirement that they were asked to design this life-sized model using only found objects that were renewable, reusable, or recyclable."

A variety of materials were located and brought into the building. The results may be seen below.

Bertoncino: "They created a very abstract space based on these. What made the project very challenging was the requirement that they were asked to design this life-sized model using only found objects that were renewable, reusable, or recyclable."